Episode 3 - What is Your Least Favorite Wine?

What grape varietal is your least favorite and why do you skip over it? What grape are you not excited about?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Gentlemen, I have a question for you both. What variety do you refuse to drink?

SPEAKER_03 0:07

I believe that there's no such thing as poor grapes, but poor wine growers and winemakers. Um, so there's no grape that I I have any kind of animosity towards per se. But I would say the two for me would be Chardonnay and Cabernet, if I had to pick as grown most in Napa Valley. Uh and if I had to pick one, eh, Chardonnay. But I think it also depends where it's coming from. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Yeah, that's uh that's a difficult question. Um all wine grapes have the potential for greatness, but there are there are a few that I think winemakers just just mess up the most. And this is coming from someone who doesn't make wine, so um not exactly my place to say, but I genuinely can't think of a wine uh grape that um just evokes that kind of so if you okay, if you're at a dinner party, well, you were just hitting an Ayury Tico in the alley the other day. I know. I I don't you know you got me. I don't even know what that is, but you got me.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

If we were at a dinner party and there were 10 different bottles of wine lined up, all a different variety, what's the one you would go, ew, I'm not drinking this?

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Chardonnay. It's Chardonnay, but depends where it depends where.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

For me, it's Chardonnay as a whole.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

I will not touch it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, you see, we'll we'll get into it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

I want to hear what Cody has to say. No, mine's mine's way more pedestrian. I think so. I don't I don't uh I'm not as wine educated and I don't have as much wine that I consume. Um, and so I I think my world's a little uh it's a little my view's a little narrower. So if I see 10 bottles of wine, I want to try 10 bottles of wine. Fair even if even if I same even if there's a risk there that I'm gonna dislike half of them or maybe even all of them, what I will say actually is I would probably avoid uh a lot of Sauvignon Blanc.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Um, mostly because I think I know exactly what it's gonna taste like, and I have to be in a very specific mood for what is often a highly acidic green tart white wine. Yeah, that's fair. So it's it's all time and place. Like I think on a hot summer day, sure, like you could crush that no matter what, but um it's it's just it's kind of like cab, as Andrew had mentioned. It it kind of plays to type too strong, and it's just not interesting. It's just not one of those things that that you gravitate to. You either love it, you hate it, or you're just kind of like, eh, you know, it's it's a serviceable grape variety for me. Okay. Um, so don't hate it, don't avoid it. But uh on a table with let's say yeah, Roussan, Marsan, um, Alberino, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, I'll I'll I'll probably hit uh Sauvignon Blanc last.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, fair. All right, why why not Chardonnay, my fellow Chardonnay hater?

SPEAKER_03 3:05

You know, okay, like I said, this is for me, it's very, I'd say region and producer driven, if you will. I mean, hey, I think a lot, I mean, obviously a lot of Chardonnay in Burgundy, uh, even in Western Australia, I got tried Lewin Estate a couple weeks ago, absolutely amazing. Um, some New Zealand stuff. So I do like it. I just think sometimes you here's the thing. I think like for me with Chardonnay, it is either, oh my god, this is the most mind-blowing thing I've tasted in a long time, or I'm like, yeah, it tastes like Chardonnay.

unknown 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Apple pear, medium, mean plus acidity. There's smoke, there's some cream. Yeah, it tastes like Chardonnay. So most like Napa Valley shards, I'm not that excited about. But there's some great stuff. I'm not gonna totally discount, but I think it's it's it can be kind of to your point, too, it can be overworked. It can reflect the winemaker more than where it's coming from. And that's why I think why sometimes I find it boring.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

I think there's far more interesting varietals in some places where Chardonnay is grown that you could plant.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah. You want to hear my hot take? Please, I would love to absolutely love to. So for me, I'm a firm believer that Chardonnay should only be made into sparkling wine. Oh, I love I'm I wear my ABC Club badge, anything but Chardonnay Club badge, proudly on my chest. Um, the main reason is if I'm at a party and I see a bunch of wine lined up, I don't know what that Chardonnay is going to taste like unless I know of that brand. Because it's the one, pretty much I'd say the one wine where if you taste it, it could taste like a million different things. It could just be straight fruit, it could be green fruit or tropical, it could taste like an oak balm and just vanilla and chocolatey. It could taste buttery and biscuity, and you just I have no idea what it's gonna taste like.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

I think for a consumer, Chardonnay is one of the most difficult things for that exact reason.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yeah. But is I I guess um devil's advocate, couldn't that be potentially part of its appeal? Is so in theory, right? You get really honed in and educated on okay, what is a Temper Neo gonna taste like? What is a Cab Franc going to taste like? Chardonnay has one of those inherent gifts where man, yeah, you really can make it taste like anything. And so if you see a bottle of Chardonnay that you're not familiar with, while yes, you don't know what it's gonna taste like potentially, if you like to gamble, then there's a thrill right there. Every bottle's a mystery.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, that is a good point. I mean, that is why it is the winemaker's grape, because you can do so much with it. It really is an expressive grape in the winery. It is, it's the one grape I would say where it can really stand out if done, if it done well. But for me as a as a consumer, I just don't want to have to put in research to buy it or to know what it's gonna be. Because if I'm if I'm buying this in a store, or if I like let me do my three examples. If I'm buying this in a store, I'm gonna skip over it because I don't feel like trying to figure out what it is. If I get gifted it, yeah, maybe I'll look at what it is, but I just can't be bothered. If I'm at a party, I'm gonna skip it because I'm not even gonna want to pull out my phone to figure out what this is.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

I just think probably too, you know, for us living and working in Napa, like we taste Chardonnay all the time for the most part. You know, it's it's something that is it's at every party gathering, we get tastes all the time. So it's also not really on our radar of things that we really want to taste.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, it's also a big flex for to that point. Um, when you hang out with a certain crowd, it's it's very in vogue to bring a true expression of shard. So even though you're not necessarily getting a um a super buttery um, you know, cougar juice style Chardonnay, um, it is still very cool to bring a white burgundy or some sort of like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

It's just I feel that's just brand.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Yeah, but but that's the thing is it's um, you know, we could be suffering from overexposure as much as there is a mystery element to its its its quality and what it's gonna taste like.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah. And I remember I was sitting in a tasting room in downtown Napa, at one of the tasting rooms that kind of have more than just Napa wine. And something I found interesting is the guy behind the counter offered this lady Chardonnay, and she went, Oh no, no, no, I hate Chardonnay. I've never liked Chardonnay. It's like, oh, well, this one's different. This one doesn't taste like your big oak balm blah blah wine. She tried it and she's like, Oh my god, I love this. This is Chardonnay. And it's like, yeah, that that's that's the problem.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Is it it's suffering the Riesling effect? Yeah. You're like, oh my God, Rieslings are sweet. I hate Riesling.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah. And it's like, no, no, this one's dry.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, it's it's the same reason for that. It's you have to put a ton of research in up front. If you're like for a germ bottle of Riesing, you don't know what the heck that thing is, if it's dry or if it's sweet. Because once you get into all those classifications of German Riesling, a what is it? Uh cabinet doesn't even mean dry. It could be dry or off-dry or medium sweet. And true.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

And once you get what past Auschleser, then okay, it's going to be sweet. But yeah, there's a whole lot of range. I think I'm one of the few people that actually really loves German wine labels. I do too. It's cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, and I love sweet wine, so I'm I'm kind of disappointed when it's not sweet, but yeah, you're like, what the fuck, dude?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I could have dry wine any day of the week. Yeah, I I think to that uh that point, um Chardonnay is is a grape with a lot of potential. Um and the the power of the winemaker, the ability to kind of craft their I don't know, their their vision of what that's supposed to taste like, that's really enticing and really exciting. And I I think from a creativity perspective, imagine being able to work with such a blank slate. To your point, from a consumer perspective, you know, you work hard for your money, it does burn you to buy, you know, a 20, 40, 60, 80, 120 bottle of wine, um, and and just have it fail to deliver. So the more you can get closer to, you know, I guess maybe the story of the brand, um, that's what's really gonna sell, you know, Chardonnay to to people that maybe kind of gravitate away from it.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

And Sauvignon Blanc, you bring up Sauvignon Blanc, and that one's honestly really interesting too, because I would say there's almost three styles of Sauveillon Blanc today. There's your New Zealand where it's that grapefruit, and people say cat pea tasting Sauvignon Blanc. Sign me up for that.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah, I was gonna say that's pretty ripping in the right circumstances. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

There's your sans serre style where it's a little bit more, I don't want to say restrained. Yeah, restrained. And then there's your fume blanc style, where they make it like a Napa, like a Napa Chardonnay, where they just oak it.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Ironically, I do really mean I like all those styles. Ironically, I do like the kind of fume blanc style. Do you really? Yeah, which you wouldn't think though, as I just, you know, kind of you know, hate it on Chardonnay. But I love oak Sauvignon Blanc. I mean, if my probably my number like my favorite style would be that New Zealand-esque, like, oh, love that. But yeah, I don't know, oak en Sauve Blanc. I'm all about that life.

unknown 10:23

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, it's cool to do um different things with grapes. And and I don't have enough wine knowledge to know if that's common practice somewhere in some relatively obscure, you know, grape-growing region, but um that's that is one of the benefits of uh working perhaps outside of uh a very famous wine growing region, is you can do things a little more creatively without being punished financially or reputationally for having done so.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I don't know enough about Fume Blanc, but that was very that was a Robert Mandavi, Gurgach Hills type creation, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Or from my from my understanding, uh, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but at the time Savion Blanc was not selling all that well. Yeah. And so uh Robert Mondavi got the bright idea to call it Fume Blanc, and I think maybe they had to age it a little bit in neutral barrels or something like that. And so it became like a synonym for Sauvignon Blanc. And I think in some cases, Fume Blanc doesn't necessarily have to have oak aging on it. Um, but oftentimes if theoretically it should. And I think that with Napa's affinity for oak and Chardonnay, that it was kind of a natural extension to start experimenting with oak aging Sauvignon Blanc. Yeah. But yeah, it was a marketing uh creation.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah. Is what's cool about it is it it's a different style for a grape that everyone thinks of as being really aromatic. Yeah. On the the the with stone, no, not stone fruit, the grapefruity smells in really high acid and just kind of it changes it, which is cool. And I mean someone could say that about Chardonnay, but I don't like Chardonnay, so I'm not gonna say that.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

And I will say I've had the privilege of tasting a couple of uh or yeah, a few of those Salt Blancs that are oak age that are uh sold at a ultra you know ultra premium price point, like around 150, 160. And they are really good. They are textural, they have great intensity of flavor, and somehow the oak complements it and uh yeah, they're they they can be beautifully, beautifully done.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

I I I do wonder, touching back on um kind of the the inception of of that fume blanc branding thing, um, you know, Sauvignon Blanc is a pretty easy wine. Uh you know, it's a relatively easy grape to grow in the turnaround time, getting that from field to market is pretty quick. I wonder if the the whole oaked Sauvignon Blanc, if it's just a if it's just a a a neat strategy to get your client into a different uh price segment and you know, oh maybe they don't like our the way we do Chardonnay, or they don't like a oaked or kind of round, rich Chardonnay. Well, let's you know let's let's wean them off a a stainless steel, bright, acidic Sauvignon Blanc and you know, gear them into a into a more expensive price point. And I where that kind of connects you today is how do you get people that maybe don't have the the the appetite to spend money on Napa wine, how do you get them to do that if they don't have a familiarity? Well, you can't necessarily drop $150 on something you don't know and work them on something that's that's a little more approachable.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

And that's that's the biggest benefit of Sophie and Blanc and why everyone's so quick to try to plant it and and get in on that market is it's relatively more inexpensive to make if you're making it in just stainless steel and you can turn around and market in a year or two. Sure. Rather than if you're trying to make your Chardonnay, it takes a little bit more more time.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

I mean the the barrel storage, all there there's there's a lot of overhead. Yeah. So with so you can save on the money and you can offer it at a lower price to be more competitive or introduce people to your wine or just wine in general.